A new study in the journal Sleep suggests that sleep apneic adolescents may have slightly different brain anatomy than their non-apneic peers.
Nearly a hundred adolescents were scanned for brain disorders, and those with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) showed signs of inflammation and thinner surface brain tissue.
Dr. Raanan Arens, chief of respiratory and sleep medicine at Children’s Hospital Montefiore in New York City, and a senior researcher on the study, said that it is unclear what these differences in brain structure mean.
However, the results do suggest that OSA can cause noticeable changes in children’s brains.
“We calculated cortical thickness and hippocampal subfield volumes from T1-weighted images of 45 controls (age 15.43 ± 1.73 years, 21 male) and 53 adolescent children with OSA (age 15.26 ± 1.63 years, 32 male) to investigate the association of childhood OSA with the alteration of cortical structure and hippocampal subfield structural changes,” according to the study.
“Our findings provide evidence for OSA-associated brain structure alterations in adolescent children prior to the onset of treatment that likely have important implications for timely intervention and continued monitoring of health outcomes.”
